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Comment by modernerd | Hacker News Reader

Your brief: create a video ad that features the company logo in the middle of the screen for the full 30-second advert, without losing people's attention.

Placing your company logo so prominently for so long in a video ad is rare – it's hard to find an excuse to leave it there for the full ad. But it works in Apple's Stickers ad here.

The video ad reads both as an invitation to get creative with the space on the back of your laptop, and as an optimistic style guide handed down from above: “by all means shove stickers over your MacBook, but – hey – if you're going to do that, they may as well interact with our logo in a fun way instead of covering it up!” (Clearly, my own MacBook contravenes the suggested guidelines: http://d.pr/i/iGOa )

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> by all means shove stickers over your MacBook, but – hey – if you're going to do that, they may as well interact with our logo in a fun way instead of covering it up!

To their credit, this is something that a lot of Macbook owners do already; I've seen more cases of the logo being highlighted by users' adornments than covered up. As an example, here's an ugly website from 2009[1].

Apple here isn't trying to push people towards highlighting the logo, they're showing how people do it already.

[1] http://www.toxel.com/inspiration/2009/11/11/10-cool-apple-ma...

Mc Donald's has ran several ads where the logo was in the center for a full 30 seconds so when you fast forward on a DVR you still see the logo as you fast forward. I imagine this ad will play on tv and again when you fast forward on a DVR you'll still see the apple logo.

Didn't the Hisenburg sticker cover the logo? Sure it didn't cover it up completely, it used the circular shape of the apple, but still it didn't quite look like an unadulterated logo. I think the message of the commercial is pretty clear, while the macbook airs aren't as "customizable", they're still "yours" & people love them. You'd have to take mine from my cold dead hands (even though it could really use some more ram)

I've been putting stickers on my laptop's for years. I don't see why Apple needed a marketing campaign for this, other than to just run some user-contributed ads.

The advert isn't for stickers.

yours looks cool! is that all composed of single stickers or a bigger wrap on the bottom ?

I used this “Tree of Life” full-size vinyl for the backdrop and applied stickers on top: http://nuvango.com/charley-harper/tree-of-life--2/15-inch-un...

Plastering stickers over full-size vinyl artwork might seem crazy, but it means that (a) any gaps are filled in by the artwork behind and (b), you can take all of the stickers off in one go and transfer them to a new laptop. (Nuvango use 3M peelable stickers, so it's easy enough to remove and restick them all at once – I've had to do it already for a replacement under warranty.)

neat idea, thanks for the detailed info!

To each their own of course, but I find these plastered laptops kind of childish. I can't be the only one right?

I don't really understand why I'd broadcast different brands that might align with what I do professionally everywhere I go. Then again, I am not one to like things on Facebook either, might be a similar tendency.

This seems more of a trend in America than it does here in Europe. Maybe it is similar to the more American custom to communicate 'witty' things on t-shirts?

Problem is there is so little differentiation between models. I had to put a sticker on mine just so it wouldn't get confused with other Airs; may as well use something fun and hard to duplicate.

My first sticker on the air happened when I went to Campus Party Brazil. It hosted 8.000 Campers in a high tech environment. My tablet alone had about 100 people. The amount of Apple machines was too high, so I placed a sticker to know which machine was mine... today it looks like: http://i.imgur.com/i6koYyC.jpg

You have stickers from Brazil to British Columbia

> To each their own of course, but I find these plastered laptops kind of childish

And of course childish is bad because we are serious grown up people doing serious things.

They're not childish--they're a signal of membership in a cult.

I always considered it a mild anti-theft measure. "Hey, that's my ..."

[meaning sticker combos should be pseudo unique]

I am tempted to get one just to cover up the giant glowing Apple logo I am showing off all the time. There are many laptop decals which do not show any 'brand' in particular.

To NOT decorate the things you own seems inhuman.

I think the point I'm trying to make is that, yes, of course self-expression is a necessary part of being human, but a sticker that literally just displays the name of something you like as a type of signaling is the shallowest form of it.

That is what I mean. I understand the practical reasons for distinguishing your laptop from others', but to do it with marketing logos from technologies you use seems childish to me.

I think you're being unfairly downvoted, mostly because I don't think childish quite conveys the thought. There does seem to be some personality type that likes a lot of flair in their life -- jewelry, stickers, tattoos, busy t-shirts -- and it's always felt a little odd to me, too.

At risk of being reductionist, it is kind of hard to understand why anyone would feel compelled to signal their likes and group-identities to strangers in such an overt way. But I'm probably revealing more about my own personality by saying that than I am theirs.

I think "compelled" is the wrong word. People like their own opinions and they like to tell them to other people. Well, you've signaled your likes to this community of strangers.

Your comment is a signaling of your likes and group-identities to strangers in an overt way.

> At risk of being reductionist, it is kind of hard to understand why anyone would feel compelled to signal their likes and group-identities to strangers in such an overt way. But I'm probably revealing more about my own personality by saying that than I am theirs.

I think the second sentence is more true than you might like to admit. People have been decorating things for as long as there have been modern humans. There is some evidence that even Neanderthals modified their environments for aesthetic reasons [1].

The desire to make things beautiful -- including our own bodies -- is as old as history itself, and even older. If you don't partake in this then I, for one, consider that a bit sad. You're missing out on a huge part of life.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/jun/14/neanderthals-...

To be fair (and as a sort of vote for the this-behavior-is-childish camp), I was much more into this sort of thing when I was a younger person.

>To each their own of course, but I find these plastered laptops kind of childish. I can't be the only one right?

Well, a lot of users are kind of children. In their teens, 20s, early 30s. So depends on how old are you. Also, are you tie+shirt serious? If you work at some tie+shirt company's IT, you might be more inclined towards a "serious" looking laptop.

>Maybe it is similar to the more American custom to communicate 'witty' things on t-shirts?

As if we Europeans don't do it?

I am not tie-shirt serious nor is the company I work at. I have gone to work in almost any type of clothing, including football (soccer for Americans) shirt + shorts (for playing after work).

I feel strange about the plaster laptops because it seems that people lend their identity from whatever they stick on their laptop which in turn comes from what technology they happen to use. I like Coffee script, Rails, Backbone, etc. but I don't really identify with it any further than my resume.

My wife and I both have airs. So do a lot of people I work with. The stickers are a very simple way to know whose is whose. It's a practical concern solved in a fun way.

I have a mac book pro 15 retina from work and a personal laptop of the same model. Stickers are a fun/easy way to tell my laptop apart quickly. There are numerous types of stickers also, I have several from different entertainment series that I like, some tech based stickers, and stickers for environmental or political causes I care about. I've had more people than i can count ask me about the environmental ones in particular. For example I'm strongly opposed to the building of the pebble mine in Alaska* so I have an anti pebble mine sticker on my personal laptop. Since I'm commonly working on side projects with friends, often in coffee shops or cafes and I tend to go to a lot programming related meetups I have had numerous people ask me about it and I take it as an opportunity to educate others about the issues involved and why I believe how I do. It's a form of low level/mild political advocacy for me that I've found to be extremely effective. This does not seem childish at all to me.

*For more info see here: http://www.savebristolbay.org/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_Mine

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